The Temptation of Your Touch (35 page)

As he started up the stairs, he could hear Anne’s brisk, no-nonsense voice warning him away from this place:
The stairs are crumbling and are quite dangerous to anyone not familiar with them.

He hadn’t taken the time to yank on his boots, but he was moving too fast to feel the bite of the crumbling stone beneath his bare feet. Centuries ago he might have had a sword in his hand as he made the dizzying charge up the stairs to storm the keep. Now he had nothing but his wits and the instinctive urge to help whoever had let out that terrible cry.

The iron-banded door at the top of the stairs was closed, a flickering ribbon of light visible beneath it. Max’s steps slowed. What if he was running straight into some sort of ambush? What if his suspicions were founded after all and someone in this house wanted him dead? What if someone was waiting on the other side of that door with a pistol that had not yet been fired?

His mouth set in a grim line, he shoved open the door, sending it crashing against the opposite wall.

This time there was no egret to greet him. The tower was deserted. As he padded across the room, the vacant eyes of Angelica’s dolls watched him from their shelf.

A single candle was burning in a silver candlestick on the edge of the dressing table, its dancing flame casting a warm glow over the tower. In that forgiving light it was almost possible to imagine the chamber exactly as it had been on the night Timberlake had died.

The report Max had received from Andrew Murray had brought the events of that night into crisp focus. As Max turned in a slow circle, the room seemed to revolve around him, the present melting into the past. Instead of a brisk autumn wind, he could feel a warm spring breeze drifting through windows that weren’t shattered, but propped open, their diamond-paned glass fracturing the candle’s glow into a thousand tiny flames. The lace draped over the half-tester’s canopy drifted in a snowy-white fall over the shiny brass bed. The keys of the harpsichord weren’t cracked and yellow, but white and even. The trailing ivy painted on the freshly whitewashed walls was verdant and green.

Several silk and satin bolsters had been removed from the cream-colored coverlet adorning the bed and piled on the velvet cushions of the window seat. It was a stage set for seduction.

Angelica would have had to wait for the perfect moment to slip away from her own birthday fete so she could meet Timberlake for their rendezvous. They would have already publicly celebrated
the triumph of her portrait’s unveiling together—Timberlake basking in the delighted gasps and applause of the guests, Angelica stunned to see herself through his adoring eyes for the first time.

Hearing the ghostly tap of a woman’s slippers on the stairs, Max whirled around to face the door.

As she hurried up the winding stairs, Angelica could probably still hear the muted laughter, the clink of champagne glasses, and the music of the string orchestra drifting into the night through the open French windows of the ballroom. She would have appeared in the doorway, breathless from ascending the stairs so fast, the color high in her cheeks, her sherry-colored eyes sparkling with both nerves and anticipation.

Timberlake would have been standing just
there,
Max decided, where the candlelight would show him off to his best advantage. He would have given her that teasing smile she loved so well, his hair gleaming like spun gold. He would have looked so handsome, so dashing—like a young prince who had scaled the walls of her tower to steal a kiss. How could she resist him? How could any woman resist him?

Max closed his eyes, inhaling a phantom breath of jasmine as Angelica rushed right through him and into Timberlake’s waiting arms. Had he wooed her with a private waltz around the tower before
claiming the softness of her trembling lips as his prize? How long had it taken for his embrace to become too tight, his kisses too forceful, his groping hands too free? How long before he’d shattered all of her hopes and dreams by shoving her down on the window seat and falling on top of her, his greedy hands tearing at the finery she had chosen just to please him?

Was that when she had screamed? Was that when her brother had come rushing up those stairs and burst into the tower, pistol in hand, and put an end to Timberlake and his wicked schemes forever?

Max opened his eyes. A darkened stain was on the timber floor next to the window seat overlooking the sea—a stain that hadn’t been there the last time he had visited the tower.

He crossed the floor and crouched beside it, touching two fingertips to the dark blot to find it still warm and sticky. As he lifted his fingers to his nose and inhaled, there was no mistaking the coppery tang of fresh blood.

He slowly stood, wiping his fingertips on his trousers. A gust of wind soared through the tower, extinguishing both the candle and his glimpse into the past. Moonlight revealed the chamber for the ruin it was. A jagged crack divided the looking glass in two. Rotting lace drifted from the canopy of the half-tester like a shroud for a body that would never
be found. The window seat was a gaping mouth, its rotted wooden teeth lying in wait to devour anyone who ventured too near.

Without the candle to hold the darkness at bay, the night beyond the window came into sharper focus. Max sucked in a harsh breath as he spotted the woman standing on the very tip of the promontory.

He must not have forgotten how to dream after all. Hadn’t he seen her just like this once before in his dreams? Standing on the edge of those cliffs with her buttercup-colored skirts billowing around her?

He wanted to shout her name, but he knew she would never hear him over the bullying voice of the wind and the roar of the waves crashing against the cliffs.

Max took off down the stairs at a dead run. He slipped on a crumbling step and almost fell, but didn’t slow, not even when he reached the foot of the stairs. He burst out of the tower, emerging from its shadow to find the wind had scattered the clouds, but left the stars hanging like shards of ice against a field of black velvet.

He sprinted through the breezeway and went racing along the edge of the cliffs toward the promontory. He might be dreaming, but the sharp stones tearing at the soles of his feet felt painfully real.

As he drew closer to the promontory, he
half-expected to find it as deserted as the tower. But she was still there, a slender figure standing all alone on the fragile shelf of rock that jutted out over the water.

The White Lady of Cadgwyck.

Moonlight silvered the crests of the waves behind her and limned her in its loving light, making her look less than solid. Max stumbled to a halt, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. He was terrified that if he drew even one step closer to her, he would startle her right over the edge of the cliff. The wind buffeted him with the force of a fist, as if trying to keep them apart.

She slowly turned to look over her shoulder at him, her long, dark hair whipping across her face until all he could see was the wistful regret in her eyes. Then she turned back to the sea, spread her arms as if they were wings, and vanished over the edge of the cliff.

“No!”

The hoarse echo of Max’s shout was still ringing in his ears when he lunged forward and went diving over the edge of the cliff after her.

Chapter Thirty-three

M
AX WAS SINKING.

The darkness enveloped him in its seductive embrace as if it had always been waiting for him. He could hear its sibilant whisper through the roaring in his ears, promising him that all he had to do was close his eyes and open his mouth and he could sleep, never to be troubled by dreams again. He wondered if it was the same voice Angelica had heard all those years ago.

Fighting to resist both the voice and the pressure swelling in his lungs, he kicked frantically toward the undulating orb of the moon. He broke through the surface of the water just in time to catch a salty wave square in the mouth. He coughed and sputtered, then dragged in a desperate breath and dove again, ignoring the painful scrape of thigh against rock as another wave sought to hurl him to his death.

Trying to peer through the murk was futile. Closing his eyes, he raked his arm through the water, seeking any evidence that he was not alone.

That he was not too late.

His groping hands closed on emptiness again and again until he could feel both his breath and his strength begin to flag. It seemed his White Lady was going to have the last laugh after all. He could almost see Anne rolling her eyes over his foolishness as she was marched before the constable to explain how their latest master had drowned after plunging over the edge of a cliff to rescue a ghost.

Then he felt it—the silky ribbons of a woman’s hair drifting through his splayed fingers. He lunged forward, half-afraid his arms were going to close around the rotting bones of a corpse that had been trapped beneath the sea for a decade. But living flesh filled his arms, its squirming softness undeniably feminine.

Triumph coursed through his veins, fueling his determination. He was not going to be too late. Not this time.

Anchoring his arm around his prize, he used the last of his strength on a mighty kick, sending them both shooting toward the surface. They broke through the churning water, gasping for breath. The outgoing tide tried to suck them out to sea, but Max’s powerful kicks drove them away
from the deadly rocks and toward the gentle curve of the cove, where the surf murmured instead of roared and the sand shimmered like crushed diamonds in the moonlight.

The waves continued to batter them from behind until they washed up on the shore and collapsed in the wet sand, still sputtering and coughing.

Max was too exhausted to protest when his companion struggled her way out of his arms. She crawled a few feet away from him, then staggered to her feet.

Still panting with exertion, she swung around to glare at him through the strings of sodden hair plastered to her face. “Damn you, Maximillian Burke!
Would you stop rescuing me?
”

Even with its crisp tones softened by fear, it was impossible not to recognize that no-nonsense voice. Max sat up, tossing his wet hair out of his eyes. If he hadn’t looked like a beached herring before, he most certainly did now. Especially with his mouth hanging open in shock.

His housekeeper was standing before him, the yellow dress from the portrait clinging to her every luscious curve and revealing
exactly
what she’d been hiding beneath her staid gowns and aprons for all these weeks. Without the restricting net to confine it, her hair hung nearly to her waist. The weight of the water couldn’t completely dampen its natural
exuberance. It was already beginning to curl into charming little ringlets in the moist sea air.

“You
idiot
!” she shouted. “What in the bloody hell did you think you were doing?”

Rising slowly to his feet to face her, he said evenly, “Don’t you think I should be the one asking you what in the bloody hell
you
were doing?”

“Oh, I was just in the mood for a little midnight swim,” she said, sarcasm ripening in her voice.

“Perhaps you should consider swimming in a place where you aren’t in danger of being dashed to death on the rocks.”

“I know exactly where all the rocks are! You don’t! You could have landed on one and cracked your fool skull wide open. Of course as hard as your head is, it probably would have cracked the rock instead! And I wouldn’t have been in any danger of being dashed to death on the rocks if I hadn’t had to jump back in the water to try and save you.”

“If you didn’t want me to dive in after you, then just what did you want me to do?” he thundered, his temper mounting along with his confusion.

“I wanted you to go away, you silly, stubborn, dear man,” she wailed, tears welling up in her eyes. “I wanted you to be just like all the rest of them and tuck your expensive tailcoat between your legs and go running back to London!”

Max pondered her words for a moment. “If you didn’t
want to marry me, you could have just said so. There was no need for you to throw yourself over a cliff.”

A strangled sound between a sob and a shriek tore from her throat. Still swaying on her feet, she bent to scoop up a gout of wet sand and hurled it at his head.

He dodged it easily. “It was you all along, wasn’t it?” he asked, the pieces of the puzzle finally beginning to click into place. “The mysterious lights, the music box, the ghostly laughter.
You’re
the White Lady of Cadgwyck Manor.” He drifted across the sand toward her, no more able to resist her now than when she had been standing on the edge of the cliff. “But why, Anne? What would you stand to gain by perpetrating such a dangerous hoax?”

“It wasn’t what I stood to gain! It’s what I stood to lose!”

Before she could elaborate, Dickon and Pippa came spilling out of the shadows at the base of the cliffs, all five of the Elizabeths fast on their heels. Max stared as they came pelting across the sand toward them, Dickon in the lead. Even if a path had been carved into the rocks, they could not possibly have climbed down the steep face of the cliffs that quickly.